


My working week and my Sunday rest

by Yankingthechain



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 13X01 reaction, Canon Compliant, Dean calling Cas sunshine, Dean centred, Established Relationship, F/M, I'm still crying, If you need closure, Jack's barely in it, M/M, Sam being a supportive bro, bonus points if you know the title, the funeral - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-18
Updated: 2017-10-18
Packaged: 2019-01-18 21:23:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12396504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yankingthechain/pseuds/Yankingthechain
Summary: In the aftermath of Castiel's death, Dean can't grieve. He can't speak, he can't deal and he can't grieve. All he can do is hold himself together long enough to say goodbye."Goodbye Cas."





	My working week and my Sunday rest

The house stands still, sturdy and stable and reliable despite the chaos that wreck within, it’s outside appearance at a complete juxtaposition to that of the inside. The wind whistles harshly through the broken windows and pervades the silence that surrounds Dean and Dean alone in the kitchen. 

Castiel is on the table, it’s handmade. A decent sort, level, smooth, doesn’t rock when you put too much weight on it, doesn’t buckle under the pressure. It would be a perfect family dinner table. Dean supposes that’s what Castiel had wanted it to be, Castiel had probably picked that table because he expected it to be a dinner table, he’d expected birthday parties, and homework, and dinner every night at six o clock, he’d expected a family to work around that table, to live around that table, for that table to act as the bridge between people as they tended to be. 

Dean supposes that the table works just as well as an obituary. 

Dean knows Castiel, god he knows him. He’s naive-the wrong word for it. He’s not naive-he’s hopeful. He’s optimistic, and determined, and strong. And stupid. God he could be so *fucking* stupid. Or at least, he had been. 

Dean moves from the doorway, but his hand hesitates over the plain white sheet Sam had scavenged from the well-stocked linen cupboard to cover both him and Kelly. He closes his eyes, steels himself, and flicks in back in almost a cruel motion. He’s not quite sure what he was expecting. 

Dean always hears these assholes, whenever they talk about their dead loved ones they always say “It’s like they were asleep.” but it’s bullshit, because Cas is-Cas *was* an angel. And he didn’t sleep. And he didn’t eat. And he sure as hell didn’t *die*. 

But it was too late for that now. Too late to be angry about something he couldn’t change and too early to grieve for someone he couldn’t save. Dean wants to scream. He’s wants to shout, and hit and break things. He wants to go out there and hit the kid because it’s all his damn fault, but Jack would just look at him in that way that reminds him too fucking much of Cas when he was still Castiel and not *their* Cas. 

He wants to climb on top of that table, curl up on top of Castiel’s chest and pull the sheet over him too, because he’s tired. Physically, he’s exhausted but it goes beyond that, he’s drained, he’s done. All he wants is for it all to stop because he’s done now, he’s tired, and he just wants to be left alone. 

He’s not ready to grieve for Castiel. Not ready to grieve for his best friend, his more than that, it’s not time for him. The dust hasn’t settled yet. 

Castiel’s face is the same. Eyelashes thick and long, fanned over his paler than usual cheekbone. His pink mouth, still chapped and turned into that tiny hint of a smirk that nobody but Dean has ever spotted. That ridiculous, pointy fucking nose that was always fucking freezing in the morning, no matter what Dean did to warm it up and Cas the teasing fucker had always shoved it right in his fucking-

He flicks the sheet back over Castiel abruptly. 

His bottom lip pulls down at the corners like a little kid trying not to cry and he bites it, attempting to delay the inevitable. He can’t, not like that. Not with Cas, laid out in front of him, on the table that he planned out for his family. Not standing in the house, that Cas had intended to live in. To raise a child. Dean knew, that Cas had thought of him when picking this place. The decent sized kitchen, the memory foam in the main bedroom, the soft as fuck towels in the linen closet because he hated how Dean had bitched about the fucking motel ones they’d always ended up using. 

Castiel had made this a home, for a family. For him, Dean and Jack. It was unspoken, but Dean knows he would’ve come around, he always did when it came to Cas. And they would’ve existed here on this tiny plane, close enough to the river to fish, close enough to the town so that Jack could’ve went to school, and they would’ve been happy here, Sam would’ve been with Eileen, had she not gotten sucked into their mess as well, and they all would’ve lived their crappy little apple pie lives and did mundane things to pass the years and Dean would come home every night to Cas and their kid and things would’ve been amazing, better than he deserved. 

And yet here there were. Castiel on the table he’d planned to make Christmas dinner on. Castiel’s newborn son, old enough to have a driver’s license, and Dean lording above it all, the only one of them the same after it all went down. Well, he wasn’t the same, but it sure as hell beat being Lucifer’s kid, being dead however would be preferable than standing over the dead body of-of-Cas-oh god-Cas-

Dean drops to his knees with a hollow thump and hangs his hand, finger tips still clinging to smooth edges on Castiel’s fucking kitchen table. He wants to say he screams. He wants to say he punches the floor and grieves for Castiel as loud as he fucking could. He wants to say all that, but it’d be a lie. 

He falls to his knees, bows his hand like he’s in prayer and tries not to vomit. He makes a small sobbing sound before muffling it with his hand, the other one wrapped around his elbow tightly as if to offer any type of support as if any type of support could be helpful in this situation-like this is a situation anyone is supposed to be with-the love of your life on the goddamned *kitchen table*-

Dean finds it very hard to breathe. 

It’s hard not to think of Cas. Think of them when they weren’t fighting, which was nearly all the damned time. It’s hard to think of him without picturing the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he grinned, big and gummy like a dumb kid, and the way he could never quite manage a perfect shave and always had ridiculous stubble on his face, and the way he claimed he hated pet names but he turned into literally goop whenever Dean had called him sunshine that one morning after a *really* good night. 

The way he looked whenever he saw a bee, like he was made of goddamned eternal light, pointing it out to Dean like, “Dean! Dean a bee! They’re important in society you know-“ before launching into a full scale rant about the extinction of bees that Dean would pretend not to listen to. 

The look of near seduction of his face whenever Dean would cook burgers for dinner because he knew they were Castiel’s favourite and the way he’d reward Dean that night for making them. 

The way he always paused in the middle of his own sentences and pull a really confused face, like he had absolutely no idea what the fuck he was talking about but was going to keep going in that gravelly voice of his. 

Dean could keep going. He doesn’t. 

It’s hard to picture a future without him by his side. That ridiculous trench coat. The ridiculous hair. It’s hard to imagine that the still man on the table in front of him is Cas, his Cas, sure the guy was never the most animated of characters but he was *alive* and you could tell from the way that light poured out of him, the way that goodness and innocence followed him around like faithful lapdogs. The way that power would crackle in a slight raise of an eyebrow. The way that he was *Cas*, Dean’s *Cas* and nobody had been allowed to take that away from him. 

Until now. 

Dean wants time to stop, he wants people to stop living their lives as if nothing had happened, he wants people to stop being oblivious, he wants them all to know that Castiel is dead and they must grieve for him because Dean can’t right now he just can’t-

By the time Sam has entered the room, Dean’s pulled himself together, mostly. He’s facing away from the body on the table-it’s not Cas, it’s not Cas, it’s not Cas-and staring out the window to where Castiel’s freaky adopted son is building a funeral pyre without actually knowing that’s the task Sam had him cutting wood for. 

“Are you ready?” Sam asks lightly, if he can tell Dean’s been crying he doesn’t mention it, and in return Dean doesn’t mention the redness around Sam’s own eyes. Dean opens his mouth to answer, to call Sam out on his stupid fucking question, to ask him what the fuck does he think, of course he’s not fucking ready-nobody is ever fucking ready for this Sam-

-But nothing comes out, not even a slightest squeak. Dean huffs in frustration and tries again, still nothing. Classic, something happens and baby Dean reappears with his fucking mutism and inability to say one word any fucking word at your husband’s goddamned funeral-

“Don’t worry about it, Dean.” Sam says, then looks appalled, “I meant-the not speaking thing-not the-not-*Jesus Christ*” Dean can’t even bring himself to snort at his brother’s faux pas, just nods and keeps his face as blank as he can, staring at the ugliest part of the wallpaper behind Sam’s head and clenching his jaw so that he doesn’t do something ridiculous like break down again. Castiel did always have a terrible taste. 

“Hey-Hey Dean, it’s okay-I have you-“ Sam smells like wood, and smoke, but his arms are sturdy and familiar when they pull Dean close and keep him on his fight. Sam hugs with his whole body, wrapped around you like an octopus who got superglued to you. “I’m so sorry-Dean-“ Sam’s voice breaks, “I’m so fucking *sorry* about all of this-“

Dean just shakes his head, sobs a little harder into the hard line of his brother’s shoulder, holding onto the rough canvas of his jacket to ground himself. 

He’s not ready to leave for a little while. 

Maybe Jack is perceptive, or maybe he heard Dean, or maybe he just doesn’t care, but he doesn’t come into the house, and waits for them to come out carrying the bodies before saying anything. “Is it not traditional, to bury the bodies?” He asks, in that matter of fact way of his. 

“This way they can’t get possessed, and come back as demons.” Sam says stiffly, Jack nods, considering this. 

“It doesn’t cause them pain, does it?”

“They’re dead, Jack. They don’t feel any pain anymore.” Sam answers in a kinder tone, maybe it’s the fact that for all respects they’re burning his parents in front of him that Sam is being so patient, but Castiel was Dean’s love long before he was Jack’s father and if Dean could right now, then he’d tell him to shut the fuck up. 

He wants to pretend that he doesn’t know which body is Castiel’s, that Sam had covered the bundled in enough cushions and towels and other flammable shit that Dean doesn’t know which one is his husband. But he can see the glint of a leather loafer, the edge on a tan trench coat, a tuft of dark hair, and it makes it all the harder to pour the gasoline over him. 

Dean comes to stand beside his brother, and Jack, and flicks a lighter on, he takes a deep breath, his lungs fill with the nights icy air, it’s not enough. 

He throws it. 

Dean’s loaded the thing off with enough gasoline that Castiel and Kelly go up in smoke easily, there’s no waiting and there’s no going back. 

Sam shifts restlessly, “You wanna say something?” He asks Jack. 

This is where Dean should say something, something good, about Castiel being a good angel, and a better man. About all the years he’s know him and all that Cas has done for him. About how Dean would burn cities and start wars for that man, about how Cas would’ve done the same for him. 

But he’s Dean. And he’s goddamned useless. And he can’t say anything at all. 

“What do you say?” Jack asks. 

Sam tilts his head back, watches the sparks drift up high into the night air, twisting and rising, like an angel falling in reverse. 

“We say thank you.”

So they do, they say thank you. They thank Castiel for being there for them, for being himself, for being a hero, for being an idiot, for being their best friend.

"Goodbye Cas,"

And the dust settles, just a little bit. 

THE END.

**Author's Note:**

> Well helllllo folks are y'all still reeling from the premiere cause you can bet I am haaaaaaaaaa no seriously we're all dead inside roll on 13x03. Please need a comment if you want emotional support and we can sob together.
> 
> -YTC


End file.
